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Musician Rachel Aggs on the Sound of Community

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Musician Rachel Aggs on the Sound of Community To help you grow your creative practice, our website is available as an email. Subscribe The Creative Independent is a vast resource of emotional and practical guidance. We publish Guides, Focuses, Tips, Interviews, and more to help you thrive as a creative person. Explore our website to find wisdom that speaks to you and your practice… April 8, 2020 - As told to Jenn Pelly, 3393 words. Tags: Music, Art, Inspiration, Process, Beginnings, Collaboration, Multi-tasking, Independence, Identity. On the sound of community Musician Rachel Aggs on experiencing music as a form of communication, the value of developing your own language, and making as much creative work as you can, simply for the pleasure of doing it. What are your earliest memories of playing music? I’ve been playing music since before memory. When I was four, my grandmother would put my hands on the piano and I would play with her, and I learned the violin when I was seven. But when I was really young it was always me and my dad playing music together. He played guitar in a folk band and I would be up way later than I was supposed to be, playing music with my dad and his friends. And you’re in a band with your parents still. What have you learned about music from them? My parents and I play together and occasionally we’ll go to a folk festival and do a little set. My dad got really into Appalachian music and started playing the banjo. My mom never used to play with me and my dad, but she picked up the double bass four years ago and now she’s really good at it. My parents are both hobbyist musicians. The main thing that taught me was that music is a form of communication, and generally just a party. Most parties that my parents would have would end up in a very similar scenario of everyone jamming together. There’d be the repertoire of tunes everyone knew, certain Graham Parsons tunes or whatever—my mom was a massive hippie—and then I’d do my probably terrible fiddle solo. I was very aware that that was a fun thing to do with people from a really young age. Musician Rachel Aggs on the sound of … Page 1/12 09.23.2021 08:13 EST Trash Kit lyric illustration All the bands you play in—Shopping, Trash Kit, Sacred Paws—have this strong feeling of togetherness to them. Does any of that come from playing folk music growing up? I’ve been thinking about this much more as I’ve grown older. My parents’ music community is very similar to what we would call a punk scene. They operate in similar ways and people form really strong friendships. I think I was naturally drawn to that sense of community because I had a grounding in folk music. But there’s also a similarity in the ways of making music together, which are based on listening and sharing more than being a virtuoso songwriter or soloist. It’s about creating something together and also making music that’s just for you. A lot of folk musicians, they’ll never perform on a stage, they’ll just perform in their house with their family or friends or maybe in a pub—but just in the corner. Knowing the joy you can get from playing in that way is so special. You’re in the moment, playing a tune because you want to, not to impress or entertain anyone. That’s really important to me. That is kind of at the root of everything I do. You used the word “joy”—the first time I saw you play in 2014, I remember being shocked, thinking, “This person is smiling so wide, not standing still, emanating pure joy.” Where does that come from? Originally it came from a place of real necessity. The music that drew me into playing electric guitar was riot grrrl and feminist punk and queercore, this music that was full of confrontation but also pride, and I needed that as a quite scrappy, shy person. I needed to create a space for myself that was empowered and strong and loud. Getting up on stage was very, very cathartic. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now, but I still feel like I need it. When I get on stage I am proving something to myself every time. Sometimes that’s why I’m smiling—because I’m like, this is hilarious. I’m winning a battle and I’m laughing. For me, performing is always going to be wound up in issues of visibility as a marginalized person. I guess it’s coming from a place of defiance. Musician Rachel Aggs on the sound of … Page 2/12 09.23.2021 08:13 EST Trash Kit - Horizon Your performances also feel inclusive to me, like there’s this opening for people. How did finding your own community influence what you do as a musician? When I was coming out, I was finding out about queercore bands and riot grrrl bands, and when I met my first partner, they introduced me to the UK scene, which was extremely small. But it was a lifeline for me. I didn’t know any gay people. I can’t exaggerate that enough. I grew up in the countryside and went to boarding school. It was very, very isolated. So music was inextricable from my coming out, or just growing up. It felt very connected to this sense of identity and a community. I was playing fiddle in a folk band with Rachel [Horwood] in 2008, but I knew as soon as it started that I wanted to play guitar in a noisy band. So we started Trash Kit. Rachel started learning drums, I was learning the guitar, and we put our music on MySpace. Andrew [who is now in Shopping] found it instantly and invited us to play at the warehouse where he lived in London. There was and still is a vibrant scene there which is very queer, and very inclusive. Andrew would put on shows for lots of people’s first bands. It felt like you could really make a mess. Our first show was crazy. We all had loads of attitude but we couldn’t play. And that was just so exciting to me. It was really linked to coming out, feeling a sense of pride. Rachel’s also mixed race, so we wrote songs about that. I was looking at the first issue of your zine I Trust My Guitar from 2011, which was about African music, and you wrote, “Whenever I play music, I try to force myself to play the opposite of what feels obvious or normal.” Can you elaborate on that? When I first started playing guitar, I was quite aware of the fact that it wasn’t very cool to play guitar. Even in 2009, there was a sense of, “People make music on laptops now, you know?” I really don’t care about that sort of thing anymore, but when I was 20 I was a bit worried about being relevant. I felt like, what’s the point of playing guitar if you’re going to play it like everyone else? I wanted to do something that was, if not new, at least unique. So I was quite strict with myself. I would practice guitar for hours and force myself to find my own style. Now I’m not so worried about everything. Musician Rachel Aggs on the sound of … Page 3/12 09.23.2021 08:13 EST I Trust My Guitar cover Did you have anything in mind when you were originally trying to find your own sound? I didn’t have a plan. I just wanted to challenge myself. It’s always fun to try and play something that’s a little bit beyond your ability. Maybe it comes back again to the defiance of performing. You’re like, “Look at me, I’m doing this really hard thing in front of people!” At the time I liked DNA, James Chance, really far-out skronky noisy guitar playing. I also really liked Marnie Stern, and I remember trying to play guitar like her, but failing. Any time I’d try and sound like someone else, I would just completely fail. But then it would be its own thing. At that time, how did playing music relate to zine-making for you? When I started playing guitar with Trash Kit people would say, “Oh, your guitar playing sounds a bit African,” or “it sounds like you’re from Zimbabwe.” And I would be like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I then started listening to a lot of African music, purely because people had been saying that. I became fascinated with learning about different styles of guitar playing, and I wanted a structure around the stuff I was learning. Also someone gave me a copy of Shotgun Seamstress, the zine that Osa Atoe from New Bloods would do, and at the time I didn’t know any other people of color making music at all. So it was mind-blowing. That was a huge inspiration for me to make my own zine. It was like a response. Musician Rachel Aggs on the sound of … Page 4/12 09.23.2021 08:13 EST DIY Guitar for Beginners cover You made a zine called DIY Guitar for Beginners for a workshop called “Decolonizing the Guitar” that you’ve done several times.
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